Endgame
by Atolm2000
Summary: Short, dark, don't blink or you might miss something important. When it comes down to a final confrontation, Sicks finds a better way to deal with his demon problem than just killing his enemy.
1. Check

This is one of two short-fic ideas for MTNN over the last few days. It just happened to be the one I needed to put down on paper because -

Well, like I wanted to have something that required spending a chapter, however short, in Sicks-PoV rattling in my skull any longer than necessary. (Having Neuro himself eating my head, rearranging some furniture, taking up a room near Kuja etc. and making himself comfortable is plenty for me, thanks.)

...

Demons were funny opponents. They were all powerful and nearly invincible - unless you starved them long enough...

Or did a little bit of research and found the right name to use at the right time with the right preparation to turn an implacable enemy into something else.

Sicks was the portrait of relaxed calm, on a throne made from the lacquered and treated dissected remains and bones of normal humans; it was a fitting display of their destined role, to be calmly broken down and used as a tool for his convenience. His elbow rested on one of the arms, taxidermied, skinless, into the armrest, as if the figure were reclining with just the hands and fingers tensed in anticipation of something horrible. He rested his cheek on his hand, a hand that had one end of a chain leash wrapped around it. The chain curled down his wrist, coiled in his lap, and he gripped the other end in his other hand that trailed slightly over the other armrest, holding it close to a stiff metal collar as if it were the jess of a falconry bird that just happened to be too large to be kept properly hooded on a glove.

That collar held what had been perhaps the one being he'd seen as a credible threat to his goals, now kneeling by his throne, head bowed in submission, keeping still and silent. His original intention had just been to annihilate the creature, and it was still certainly an option, but after his meeting with the demon, he had taken the time to go back over his family's records. It wasn't that surprising, that there had been times the Bloodline had dabbled in demonology previously. It was a fascinating subject, from what information they had managed to glean; compared to human society, demons were a whirl of chaos and conflict, with unhidden malice and displays of dominance and submission instead of politeness and pleasantries. Neuro, by all evidence, was no exception to this, so it was less and less surprising that Sicks's one potential rival had been not anything spawned by the mortal realm, but a powerful demon.

He knew the demon and his pets had arrived together, and then split up, or been split up; it had been well according to plan - separate the King from the other pieces, set a proper snare, and then deal with the other ordinary human rabble at leisure.

It was the girl, really, who was the more interesting target of the two, so he was glad she was the more likely to stumble across this first. Since checking over Sai's memories he'd been curious what about the child so fascinated Neuro, as the demon definitely held her closer than "just a pawn" or "just a target for the public eye". There were flickers of decent potential, for one of the lesser breed of humans, but aside from what training and conditioning she'd already had, she was still almost depressingly human, and yet little could drive Neuro into a rage like an outside threat messing with _his_ little toy - an emotional attachment that formed one of the most glaring blemishes in Sicks's demonic rival.

That was what Sicks wanted to test, now. The next time he let go of the leash, he was going to see the demon torment, defile, break and destroy its own human pet. It would be amusing enough to watch for just that; Neuro had done well at conditioning her to handle it, so that it was assured to take time and effort to overcome that and break her. At the same time, however accustomed she was to the demon's abuse, it wouldn't save her; heat metal under one set of circumstances and it strengthened - a different set, and it shattered.

The more interesting test would be the demon's reaction. He certainly hoped just that wouldn't be enough to leave a dent in a creature that was definitely far older than him and supposedly "superior", but it would be start on achieving a true and utter victory over Nougami Neuro - not just killing or leashing the demon, but crumbling and breaking the creature.


	2. Mate

Neuro was positively seething with frustration and anger; every nerve wanted to try to ignore the bindings and commands to just _try_ to dismantle his captor slowly. Flaying was nice, it'd been a while since he'd properly skinned someone alive, and if he really had time maybe see how far a human could be taken apart without actually severing anything vital? Sicks splayed out like the human equivalent of one of those technological "how it works" demonstrations, with all the parts laid out on a board still functioning, was a pretty, pretty image.

He stayed calm and serene regardless, his downcast expression carefully schooled and blank; the situation was degrading enough without sacrificing any more dignity than necessary, and he certainly wasn't about to give the foul thing on the throne the satisfaction of getting that kind of reaction out of him at a time when it would just be a futile display of temper, a childish tantrum. He was sure Sicks could guess that he was seething, he didn't need to show how much, and more than that he didn't need to show a few pointed fangs for any _other _ reasons.

There were ways around bindings like that - but they were so little known and little seen that they may as well not have existed. It required a pre-existing pact of some sort, setting one's self up willingly in something that had to have a great deal of energy and time invested in it; to set up and reinforce a connection that required trusting a human to not figure out what it was and take advantage of it, or to not take advantage of it if things went badly and it was needed.

Trust was not a word common in the demonic vocabulary. You only trusted someone stronger than you as far as you knew that keeping you in one piece was beneficial to their agenda. You only trusted an equal as far as you could fend them off if things went badly and as long as it was in their best interest as well as yours. You only trusted someone weaker as long as you could remind them that your claws could be at their metaphorical throat in a moment if they crossed you.

Demons did, indeed, work in power and control, dominance and submission, and a demon learned from a young age that giving _anyone_ more power over you than was absolutely necessary was idiocy; asking for a knife in the back. Using reinforced pacts as a defense against bindings was unheard of, because it was swallowing the spider to catch the fly; getting out of one situation of being at someone's mercy by putting yourself at someone else's mercy.

And what self-respecting demon would trust a teenage human girl with something like that?


End file.
